


Kiss #7

by StrangeMischief



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2020-10-26 09:56:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20740343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangeMischief/pseuds/StrangeMischief
Summary: “Please,” Stephen groaned, internally cringing at how whiny, how desperate, he sounded. “Just this once, Tony. Once is all I ask. I can make it if I can have this one moment to have for myself.”





	1. #7.33 - In Which Tony Learns Something He Hadn’t Known

**Author's Note:**

> As always, enjoy :3

_ #7.33 - In Which Tony Learns Something He Hadn’t Known _

Tony wasn’t meant to see him like this. Tony wasn’t meant to show up. It wouldn’t have happened if the billionaire had just gone to his party and lived it up with his buddies while ignoring the absence of a certain sorcerer. But Tony had come pounding on the Sanctum front door and forced Stephen to stumble down the long staircase and twist the door open with sloppy, drunken movements.

“Stephen?” Tony asked, voice colored with shock as he took in his friend’s appearance. The usual collected and pristine appearance Tony associated with Stephen was gone. Rather, the tall man stood before him with jet black hair disheveled and a face several days past needing a shave. His plain white shirt was stained, bare feet poked out from under his flannel pajama pants, and his entire person reeked of alcohol. “What the fuck happened? Are you okay?”

“Tony? You came to see if I’m okay?” Stephen asked, voice thick with emotion as he blinked in disbelief. “You came to see me?”

“Of course, I did, idiot,” Tony huffed, gently nudging Stephen’s exposed feet from the icy stoop and back onto the warm Sanctum floor. “I was worried when you did show up to-_hmph!_”

Stephen leant forward and, before Tony could process what was happening, pressed their lips together. Tony froze in place, overcome with shock as Stephen gently kissed him, his mouth feeling like a raging fire compared to the chill of the air around them.

“Please,” Stephen sobbed, breaking their lips apart as he came up for air, “please just kiss me back, Tony.” He moved in again, a desperate glint in his eyes and Tony finally regained a sense of himself and moved back.

“Stephen,” Tony gasped, shoving the sorcerer back with a firm push. “We can’t. I can’t.”

“Please,” Stephen groaned, internally cringing at how whiny, how _desperate, _he sounded. “Just this once, Tony. _Once _is all I ask. I can make it if I can have this one moment to have for myself.”

“You’re drunk,” Tony refused with a shake of his head. “Go inside, go to bed, and I’ll have Bruce come to shove some Ibuprofen down your throat and straighten you out in the morning before-”

“Tony,” Stephen begged, too drunk to be ashamed of what he wanted, of what he was asking Tony to do. “Please let me-”

“No, Stephen,” Tony cut him off, his tone firmer, more resolute than it had been before. “This isn’t what you want. You wouldn’t be saying this if you hadn’t drunk a whole damn liquor store-”

“No, but I would have still wanted it,” Stephen hiccupped, his voice bitter and wounded. “I would have thought about it and _needed _it just as much as I always do.”

Tony stepped back as if physically struck by Stephen’s words. “Like you always do? Jesus, _no_.”

Stephen flinched, shame and rejection finally making their way past the haze of alcohol and twisting into his gut like knives. “I didn’t mean for you to know,” he whispered in a watery voice. “I know I’m not what you want but…” Stephen trailed off, and his hand twitched as if we intended to reach out for Tony but stifled the impulse.

Tony gaped at Stephen, overwhelmed and unsure what to say. And so, he said nothing and backed away from the Sanctum and back onto the snow-covered sidewalk, never breaking his conflicted gaze from Stephen’s tearful one.

Stephen shut the door and went to bed and didn’t leave for several days.

Tony went back to the crowded bar he’d rented out for the evening, smiling emptily as his friends clapped his back, glad the groom had returned to his stag party after all.


	2. #7.66 In Which Stephen Is Sober (But Tony Is Not)

_#7.66 In Which Stephen Is Sober (But Tony Is Not)_

Peter had been worried. Tony hadn’t shown up for their usual tinkering session four times in a row. “I’ve already tried to go, and F.R.I.D.A.Y won’t let me into the apartment. You can portal right in,” Peter had urged, practically pushing Stephen out of his own home while Wong observed thoughtfully from the stairway. “You’re his friend,” Peter tacked on. “He’ll listen to you.”

Stephen doubted it, but he went anyway. For Peter, he told himself, not because _he _was worried. Not because _he _was desperate to see Tony after over a week of being cut off from the man. Not because _his_ need to be wrapped in the familiar scent of mechanical oil rivaled his need to breathe air.

But when he opened a portal to Tony’s darkened living room and was greeted with an entirely different scent. One Stephen knew all too well. Sweat, warm drinks, and stale tears. _Oh, Tony. _

The man in question rose unsteadily from a plush sofa and stalked over to Stephen, a hard glint in his chocolate eyes. “Who let _you _in? F.R.I.D.A.Y? She’s fired,” he grumbled, tilting back his crystal glass and frowning upon realizing it was already empty.

“Tony,” Stephen sighed, gently wrapping his long fingers around Tony’s wrist, “Peter sent me. He was worried. How long have you been like this?”

“Um...a while,” Tony replied distantly, staring at the hand on his wrist. His head tilted up to reveal his pupils, blown wide, as he stared at Stephen in transfixed silence. “I can’t deal with this,” he croaked, “I need...I want...I need another drink.”

“A while? Christ, Tony,” Stephen groaned, plucking the glass from Tony’s hand. “What happened?”

It was an innocent question, one Stephen expected Tony to brush off. Not one that would break him.

“I didn’t know,” Tony groaned weakly, reaching forward and twisting his fingers into the fabric of Stephen’s heavy robes. “I didn’t know, and now it’s all I can think about.” Large, chocolate eyes, rimmed with tears, shone with almost animalistic desperation. “It’s _all _I think about. Always, _always. _It won’t stop, and I-I need, _fuck, _Stephen-”

“Tony,” Stephen warned, detaching the billionaire’s hands from his clothing and carefully pushing him back a step. “You need water. You need to sleep. You’re drunk.”

“Don’t fucking throw my own words back at me!” Tony shouted, raising an accusatory finger and stabbing the air to punctuate his words. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about! It’s just one time, and I can move past this-this, _Christ, _I don’t know what it is.”

Stephen gnawed at the inside of his cheek and tried to avoid looking at Tony’s now tear-streaked cheeks. He understood the need, the _want. _But this wasn’t Tony. This was drunken impulsiveness that would be regretted later. “Tony,” Stephen sighed thickly, licking his lips as he struggled with his words. “It’s not what you want. I’m..._I’m _not what you want.”

“That’s not true!” Tony protested, snaring his fingers back in the elaborate folds of Stephen’s navy robes. “Isn’t it what _you _want?” Tony whispered lowly, arms winding up and around Stephen’s neck, “Aren’t I what you want?”

Stephen drew in a sharp breath. “Yes. _Yes, _of course. You know that.”

“Then please,” Tony pleaded, pulling drunkenly on Stephen’s neck in an attempt to join their mouths.

It was so tempting. They were so close. No one was here, no one would know. It was possible _Tony _wouldn’t even know by tomorrow. But no, Stephen couldn’t. Tony would sober up eventually, and he would be angry, he would be _hurt. _Stephen didn’t think he could bear seeing Tony look at him with the same shadowy distrust that was cast in the direction of so many others in the brunet’s life.

“I can’t,” Stephen rasped, ducking out from under Tony’s arms. “Go to bed. I’ll tell Peter you’re not feeling well.”

Tony went to bed and rolled in fitful sleep.

Stephen slunk off to his room at the Sanctum that smelt of sweat, warm drinks, and stale tears.


	3. #7.99 In Which Everyone Is Sober (Finally)

_#7.99 In Which Everyone Is Sober (Finally)_

Tony hadn’t come to the Sanctum since Stephen kissed him, and Stephen hadn’t thought he ever would. And yet here he was, clean cut and smelling of blueberries and oil — his old self.

“Pep knows,” Tony offered when Stephen opened the front door, forgoing a greeting. He slipped under the sorcerer’s arm and stomped his snow-covered shoes on the entryway carpet. “Well she doesn’t _know, _but she knows I’m, as she put it, ‘preoccupied.’”

Stephen closed the door and turned to face Tony, his face tight with unease. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, twisting his fingers in the smooth fabric of his cloak. “It wasn’t my intention to-”

“I told her she was right,” Tony interrupted. “Never could lie to her. But she seemed…relieved, honestly. Angry, but relieved. After Thanos…she just wants to live life in peace. A life I can’t give her. It was an easy out.”

Guilt rose up in Stephen’s chest, an endless chant of, ‘_Your fault. Your fault.’ _running through his mind. “You’re not getting married?”

Tony smiled softly, a glimmer of sadness passing over his face, and shook his head. “I can’t do it. It’d be unfair to Pepper. To me…” his dark eyes drifted over to Stephen. “To you.”

“To me? Tony, _no,_” Stephen groaned. He reached around the other man and yanked the door open, shivering as a burst of icy wind ripped past the doorframe and into the room. “Go back and tell her you were wrong, and it’s all sorted now.”

“Stephen, -”

“I want you to be happy!” Stephen snapped. “Just forget everything and go back. I’ll…I’ll be fine. Just…don't give up your own happiness for mine. _Please._”

“I can’t believe you’d ask me to do that,” Tony gawked. “I can’t believe you’d say you’d be _fine _with me living out my life with Pepper as long as it makes me _happy._”

Stephen winced at the notion. Tony and Pepper dancing at their reception, joy in their eyes. Tony and Pepper swinging a small child between their arms, peals of blissful laughter ringing through the air. It’d hurt, even from a distance, but… “It’s enough.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed, and he took a step closer, face dangerously close to Stephen’s. “And you’d be able to be close? It wouldn’t hurt? It wouldn’t be _tempting _anymore?”

Stephen swallowed hard and let his mind drift back to the hazy memory of the last time Tony was here and this close. Of how he’d succumbed to the temptation. “Tony,” the sorcerer groaned lowly. The man was so close that his dark hair shifted with every breath Stephen released. “It was enough,” he whispered, hoping Tony would read between the lines and let it go, let _him _go.

Tony’s lids dropped closed for a moment as Stephen’s breath fanned across his face. When they snapped open Stephen almost took a step back in shock at the undeniable fire burning in those whiskey eyes.

Tony reached out and pushed the front door roughly, ignoring Stephen’s flinch as it snapped closed with a _bang!_ “That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

And then Tony was kissing him.

The last time Tony’s mouth had been on his, Stephen had neither the state of mind nor the time to really _feel _it. But now, now Stephen relished every sensation and eagerly drank in the moment, committing every instant to memory.

Tony’s lips were soft and gentle, in texture – a sharp contrast from the coarse texture of his signature stubble. His mouth moved against Stephen’s slowly, but with a searing energy that made every part of Stephen melt and yet harden at the same time.

Tony was _consuming _him, and Stephen didn’t have the will or desire to stop him from doing it.

“You were wrong, _are _wrong,” Tony groaned when he pulled back, chest heaving as he struggled to regain his breath. “I was wrong too,” he huffed before leaning back in to kiss the corner of Stephen’s mouth, the arch of his cheek, the curve of his brow, the tip of his nose. “We were both _so fucking wrong._”

“About what?” Stephen asked with a frustrated sighed, chasing after Tony’s lips.

“Just doing _this,_” Tony leant in and chastely pressed their lips together, “once? I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t live having done this just one time. Knowing you were out there and someone _else _could be doing this?” He drew Stephen in, mouth hard, _possessive. _“I couldn’t bear it.”

Stephen’s chest fluttered. “Neither could I.”

.

.

.

And, luckily, neither had to.


End file.
